At the time of her birth, however, her father was working as an elevator operator for the Goodyear Tire and Rubber Company because he could not get hired as a research scientist. Eventually, her father broke the color barrier and became the first African American chemist to work for Goodyear.
From a young age, she wrote plays and stories which her classmates performed. In high school she wrote a comic book along with her older brother which featured characters named Jet Boy and Jet Girl who could fly and communicate telepathically. "One of the things that fascinated me when I was growing up was the way language was put together, and how words could lead you into a new place," she told Mohammed B. Taleb-Khyar in a 1991 interview for Callaloo. "I think one reason I became primarily a poet rather than a fiction writer is that though I am interested in stories, I am profoundly fascinated by the ways in which language can change your perceptions."
She was named a presidential scholar in 1970, when she was designated one of the hundred best high school graduates in the nation.
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